Lila Stephens was 11 months old when she suffered 3rd degree burns to her hands from touching the unprotected glass of a fireplace at a resort in Wisconsin.

To stave off regulation and lawsuits over severe burns to toddlers, manufacturers will provide protective screens as standard equipment with new gas fireplaces.

The industry has revised its voluntary guidelines to call for the addition of mesh screens to be attached to new fireplaces. The aim is to prevent contact with the scorching glass fronts, which get hot enough to melt skin.

Fireplace makers will have a long lead time–until Jan. 1, 2015–to provide screens with new units, though companies are already retooling to do it sooner, said Tom Stroud, a senior manager with the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Assn., an industry group.

As reported by FairWarning, more than 2,000 children ages five and under were injured by contact with the unprotected glass in a recent 10-year period, according to a federal database, with many suffering 2nd and 3rd degree burns. That has triggered at least a dozen lawsuits and scrutiny by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which in June, 2011, sought public comments on the need for federal standards.

Specifications for the screens are included in revisions to the guidelines that will be published in the next few weeks by the American National Standards Institute, which certifies voluntary standards for industry groups. An industry technical committee that previously had rejected the need for a physical barrier developed the new guidelines.

Separately, the hearth and patio association has launched an information campaign to alert current owners of an estimated 11 million gas fireplaces that the glass can get dangerously hot, and that they should buy a screen from a fireplace store if there are children in the home. Many users of gas fireplaces weren’t the original purchasers and never saw any warning statements.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is holding off on regulations in response to the industry moves. Spokesman Scott Wolfson said the agency will use social media to draw attention to the industry’s safety tips. ‘’We share a common goal to prevent young children from suffering terrible burn injuries from touching scorching hot fireplace glass,’’ he said.

However, the industry actions are drawing mixed reviews. Jerome Tapley, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney involved in lawsuits against several fireplace makers, said it was “very troubling’’ that the companies will have more than two years before beginning to provide the screens, and that there are no plans to offer retrofits to current owners.

Dan Dillard, executive director of the nonprofit Burn Prevention Network and chairman of the prevention committee of the American Burn Association, said the safety commission should adopt mandatory standards, rather than rely on voluntary steps by the industry.

And Dillard, who said he believes the federal estimate of about 200 child burn cases per year is unrealistically low, noted that members of the prevention committee plan to prepare a white paper with injury data from leading pediatric burn centers. The aim, he said, will be to “bring a spotlight focus to the severity of this.”

CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum declined an interview request. But Wolfson, the commission spokesman, said deferring to the voluntary standard is partly a matter of the agency’s workload, partly a matter of law.

While saying 2015 seems like a long lead time, Wolfson questioned whether the deadline could be speeded up by a time-consuming federal rulemaking. Moreover, he noted, the commission is precluded by law from regulating when a voluntary standards groups is taking actions similar to those the agency would take.

Warning label currently provided in owners' manuals for gas fireplaces.

Two top fireplace makers already provide safety screens with each new gas fireplace. Hearth & Home Technologies of Lakeville, Minn., for several years has included screens with its glass-enclosed fireplaces. And in 2011, Lennox Hearth Products of Nashville, Tenn., began offering a free attachable screen with each fireplace as part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit.

Under the voluntary standard, the glass is allowed to reach temperatures as high as 500 degrees or 1,328 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the type of glass used. The limits are meant to keep the glass from failing, not people from getting burned. Up to now, most manufacturers have not provided screens or prominent safety warnings out of fear of marring the aesthetic appeal of fireplaces or scaring off customers.

When an official of Miles Industries, a Canadian fireplace maker, was asked in an April deposition why the company had not warned that touching the glass could result in 3rd degree burns, the official said that would be “fear-mongering.‘’ Another Miles executive testified that, with that warning, “As a parent, I don’t know if you’d buy such a fireplace.”

Some have argued that the risks of a fireplace are so obvious that keeping kids safe is simply a matter of good parenting and common sense. However, while everyone understands the risk of an open flame, many fail to recognize the hazard of the unprotected glass, which can remain dangerously hot for at least a half-hour after being turned off.

Some child burn victims were hotel guests whose parents had no experience with gas fireplaces. One such parent was Fred Stephens, whose 11-month old daughter Lila had to have skin grafted from her abdomen to both palms after suffering 3rd degree burns from fireplace glass at a resort in the Wisconsin Dells in 2010.

Stephens, a probation officer who lives in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., said he was “just devastated” and felt “horribly guilty’’ that he failed, out of ignorance, to protect his child.

Lila, who recently turned three, has some visible scarring but full use of her hands, Stephens said. The family recently settled a lawsuit stemming from the incident.

Stephens said including fixed screens will be a positive step, adding that it’s “very frustrating’’ that it took legal pressure to achieve this. But, Stephens said, “that seems to be the way things work out with any industry in order to force some meaningful change.”

Correction- The screens will not be “Permanently Attached”. They will be supplied with the unit, and will be hopefully be installed by the homeowner or installer. They are removable by the homeowner for cleaning, etc. If a homeowner finds them unappealing or feels that he or she does not need them because they do not have children or “at risk individuals” at home, they simply may not put the guard on. A “Permanently Attached” safety device is a seat belt, or a car’s air bag. These items are part of the car and considered permanent. An easily removable feature is not.

U.S. labor investigators recovered $240.8 million in back wages for American workers last year amid an intensified crackdown on pay abuses in low-skill industries.

That newly released total – which reflects the amount of back wages that employers agreed to pay, or were ordered to pay, following government investigations – amounted to $890 per affected worker.

However, a recent report prepared for the Labor Department suggests that the back wage recoveries only scratch the surface of what underpaid workers actually are owed.

The report by Eastern Research Group, issued in December, estimated that in California and New York alone, minimum wage violations in 2011 cost workers at least $32.7 million a week—or about $1.7 billion a year. At least 50,000 families in the two states suffered income losses due to minimum wage violations, and at least 14,800 families were brought below the poverty level, the report found.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, news that may break a chocolate-lover’s heart: A consumer group is taking legal action against an array of major chocolate manufacturers and retailers, saying they’ve failed to warn consumers about the potentially harmful levels of lead and cadmium in their products.

iStock Photo

The Oakland, Calif.-based consumer group As You Sow is expanding its fight today. Under California’s Proposition 65 — which requires warnings on products containing chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm — As You Sow is filing 60-day notices against chocolate makers Mars, See’s Candies and The Hershey Co.

The action, which could lead to private lawsuits, brings to 16 the number of manufacturers or retailers put on notice by the consumer group. As You Sow says it has identified 26 chocolate products that exceed California’s threshold “safe-harbor” levels and illegally fail to carry

It sounds like the opening line of a corny joke, but it’s actually a question raised by a baffling glitch in a Federal Highway Administration study on the safety of electronic billboards. Billboards that seem magically to have moved from one side of the highway to the other are part of a detailed critique by a former FHWA researcher, who says the federal report is so badly flawed that no one should rely on its conclusions.

It’s just the latest, but most prominent, black eye for the federal research, which was announced with fanfare in 2007.

The $859,000 FHWA study had been eagerly anticipated by local agencies across the country, including some that held up permit decisions on electronic billboards to await federal guidance. They hoped the report would shed light